Daksh was the family fuck up. He’d screwed up everything worth screwing up. But he was not, absolutely not, going to screw up his brother’s wedding.
The lift doors closed around him and he took a deep breath, forcing himself to let it out slowly, counting down so it eased the tension cinching his chest. He stepped out in the lobby and walked over to the reception.
“I need to clear the bill,” he told the pretty, young girl behind the desk.
She nodded, smiling as she handed him the printed bill. He scrawled his signature on it without looking and handed over his card. The minutes crawled by agonisingly slowly as the receptionist swiped it and waited for approval. And then it was done. She handed it over to him.
He took the card, shoving it into his pocket.
“Do you have any other luggage, Sir?” she asked.
“No.” He shouldered his backpack. “Thank you,” he tacked on when he realised how rude he was being.
For a moment, he hesitated, his gaze drawn back to the elevator lobby in the distance. For once in his fucking life, he was doing the right thing. The honourable thing. Why then was it so fucking hard?
He took a step towards the elevator but before he could take another, the concierge walked up to him.
“Sir, your car is ready.”
Daksh nodded. He followed the other man out of the front doors of the hotel. This time he didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 21
VEDIKA
Vedika landedin Mumbai two days later. She’d spent the entirety of that time burrowed into her room, working like a maniac and spending her free time systematically drinking her way through the mini bar.
It was interesting to see just how much alcohol you could pour down your throat while trying to drown out the confusion in your brain. The consensus? There wasn’t enough in the damn mini bar.
When she finally disembarked in the muggy heat of Mumbai, she was tired, disoriented, and cranky. Her suitcases were the last to appear and she dumped them haphazardly on to her trolley before pushing it through the crowds and out of the terminal doors.
She should have taken her father up on the offer to have a porter escort her through, she thought. Sometimes, she should just lean in to being the Thakkar princess. This could have been one of those times. As she thought it, the topmost suitcase, the smallest one, slipped right off the trolley and landed on the ground with a crash. Muttering under her breath, she knelt to pick up the suitcase.
A sharp whistle cut through the air and she glanced up from where she was scrambling on the ground.
“Vik!” A relieved smile escaped her as her brother made his way over to her, his tall, muscular frame just what she needed to handle her runaway luggage.
“Were you delegated to pick me up?” she asked, watching him rearrange her luggage on the trolley with meticulous precision to ensure it wouldn’t fall off again. His military discipline wouldn’t allow for anything less than perfection, she supposed.
“I volunteered, brat,” he said now, grinning at her.
She followed him out to where the car and driver were waiting for them. “Namaste Bitiya,” he said with a broad smile.
“Namaste Angad Chacha,” she said brightly, slipping into the car and letting him shut the door behind her. Vikram helped the driver load her luggage into the trunk before joining her in the backseat of the car.
“So,” Vik said, turning to her, “tell me all about Goa. What did you get up to?”
She stared out of the window, not meeting her brother’s perceptive eyes. She could feel his gaze on her profile, watching her carefully.
“There’s nothing much to tell,” she said, even as her mind presented her with a film reel of memories of dark, intense eyes boring into her, a portion of mashed potatoes on a tray, and big hands grabbing her as her head went under water and pulling her up, holding her close. “It was a pain in the neck being stuck there when I had so much work to attend to. Boring and frustrating.”
“How in the world you found Goa boring is beyond me.” Vikram ruffled her hair affectionately. “Listen, I wanted to ask you, do I have to attend the dinner tonight?”
The dinner tonight. Vedika rested her head on the backrest, her gaze still stuck to the rapidly changing scenery outside the window. Right now, she was tracking the determined delivery rider who was keeping pace with their car.
“I mean,” Vikram continued, “I know they’re your future in laws but that only means you have to schmooze them right? Not me.”
Right. The dinner tonight. Ashish’s parents were hosting them at their home supposedly to discuss last minute wedding arrangements but really, for the families to meet and spend more time together. The families…wouldhebe there?
